An installation by artist and Clarke University Professor of Art Louise Kames will accompany the exhibition Just to Live is Holy.

Kames was a member of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Dubuque for 24 years and remains closely connected to the women of the BVM community. She created the installation, Dear Mother, in 2003 to honor twenty-two deceased BVM Sisters with whom she had lived or worked.

Dear Mother honors the lives and commitments of the BVM Sisters through references to key practices and rituals along their spiritual path. The installation consists of twenty black silk forms, suspended in procession and screen printed with each sister’s entrance letter and an image of the pine walk at Mt. Carmel, the Congregation’s Motherhouse in Dubuque. Among the suspended forms are etched glass grave markers and a copper vessel containing a video projection of a beating heart. Accompanying the forms is a Sacramentary, which is the Catholic book of prayers for celebration of the Eucharist, the ceremony of the last supper. Images of the twenty-two women are printed on the pages of the Sacramentary.

Louise Kames was born in Illinois and lives in Dubuque. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree (1988) in drawing and printmaking from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, a Master of Arts degree (1981) in Art History from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and a Bachelor of Arts degree (1977) in studio art and art history from Clarke University in Dubuque. Kames began her teaching career at Clarke in 1983 where she is currently a Professor of Art and Chair of the Visual and Performing Art Department.

Image: Installation of Dear Mother